


A Moment Shared

by vaultbug



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: (hunter voice) oh boy im whipped, Character Study, Gen, OC, Slow Burn, if an one-shot can be slow burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:53:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26699344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaultbug/pseuds/vaultbug
Summary: Hunter shares a moment alone with a close...friend, if friend was the word to describe the unstable relationship between an eager hunter and apathetic spider. Acquaintance? No; not acquaintance or family, not ally. Perhaps...partner.No. Not partner.But it was a nice thought, all the same.
Relationships: The Hunter/OC (Hollow Knight), The Hunter/Sino | The Archivist
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	A Moment Shared

**Author's Note:**

> done for @pineapplesquash on tumblr! Please go check out their hollow knight ocs, Sino has my whole heart.

Comfortable is a word that Hunter is unacquainted with. It oozes with little appeal. To think of comfort is to recall the countless villages and homes he had passed in his travels; of bugs who dare not leave in fear of unknowns, of warriors who abandon lifestyles for domestic  _ sap _ . There are tales of comfort for pitiful cowards who take their lives in selfish attempts at sacrifice, comforting mothers who say useless murmurs to spineless young. It is a pathetic word. Too often do bugs use it as a facade for  _ convenience. _

Though there is...tenderness, in this fragile tension of his den. He would not go so far to say familiarity breeds between him and the Deepnester -- but instinct ( the  _ annoyance _ ) shifts in his carapace and reaches out, yearning. He is all too aware they are alone. Quiet tastes like suspense, waiting for the strike. Who would push first? It would be easy to reach over and snap them up, just as it would be easy for them to string him up and  _ eat. _

Yet nothing. The glade carries on. These are strange times indeed, he thinks. How absurd, sitting with a spider who knows the brutality of your temper and finds no threat to it.

(Perhaps he is getting soft.)

Sino hums beside him. They are immune to his internal dilemma, either oblivious or ignoring his occasional glances. Their focus is caught up in weaving instead, a blanket of fine silk laid about their lowers. What they are weaving is beyond him -- he’s never been interested in the silk arts, a craven way to capture prey -- but he finds their movements soothing all the same. 

Fingers flick between strings. Sino finds one strand they dislike, tuts; slices it off. Hunter thinks of that violence directed towards him and for a second, that murmur in his carapace strengthens,  _ hungry _ . 

Ignore it. “You’ve been busy,” he murmurs and plucks at one string.

One of Sino’s hands comes up to gently swat him away. He would find offense at the gesture, had Sino not also moved closer. “Or perhaps you’ve been lethargic,” they offer as their excuse, not pausing between strands. 

“I have been attending my journals.”

“Yet I do not hear scraping tablets or fingers painting,” Sino says back. Their voice is polite but beneath it there is an aura of smugness. 

Hunter flicks his eyes away. Begrudgingly, they are right and it infuriates him how their words seem to slip deeper and deeper into his carapace each lonely day they are away. “I think I’ve captured this prey quite well,” he says instead and holds out his tablet for them to see.

It is so simple, really, how they lean closer. It should mean nothing more than a quick glance. Except, of course, it’s not so simple at all and Hunter freezes as they touch against him. He feels fluff against his shoulder, the faint shuffling of lumaflies and lifeseeds as they scatter at Sino’s movement. Warmth glances at his carapace, alien and foreign. A hand settles behind his back.

“This is Sheo’s paint,” they huff as their fingers brush over his on the tablet. “You are a hunter  _ and  _ a thief.” 

He harrumphs, although his carapace is alight and that hammering in him comes from his perceived threat,  _ comfort _ , threat. From them surrounding him he feels the urge to rip, to nestle, to flee, to  _ pounce  _ like some rabid grub still in their second molt. How contradictory, he muses quietly. Even now, surrounded in their scent he cannot decipher if they mean him harm or if he can find solace in them. Even under the sweet smell of lifeblood, the Deepnester part of them cannot hide.

Breathe, Hunter. Remember what you learned in all these years alone. He is not so easily swayed by the primal instincts like lesser bugs. 

“He will not miss it,” he says back.

Sino tilts their head and even without eyes, it is so ineffably smug.  _ Of course,  _ it seems to say. “It looks well,” they remark. “Care to tell me more?”

This, he can answer to. “Care to keep questions limited?” He huffs.

Sino bites the barb, laughs softly. “I cannot make promises I will not keep,” they say back and that hand rises from behind him to settle on his back. 

He resists the shudder. Breathe, hunter, just as you have learned.


End file.
